Energetic Overflow And "The Blob" Effect

The Key To Imperturbability

One of the difficult things about conscious living is that people struggle with emotional impulses. They feel they can’t control their anger, fear, upset, etc. Or, even worse, they feel their negative emotions are justified and to let them go would somehow be a betrayal of self (I’m commonly asked questions along the lines of, “If a person does “x” to me, and I let them get away with it, doesn’t that make me a pushover?”).

All the strife that comes with negative impulses, though, is based on a single (but significant) misunderstanding — and today, we’re going to try and clear that up.

The fundamental misunderstanding at the root of every impulse to act negatively is this:

People feel as if their negativity gets projected outward when they act on it; like they have an emotional magic wand they can use to cast an “anger” or “upset” spell that’ll travel directly from the wand to strike whoever they’re directing it at.

In reality, though, emotions can never be “projected” outward. I can’t cast anger (or any other negative emotion) at someone else and not be affected by that anger.

Emotions “spill over.” Meaning that someone else can only be affected by your negative emotions after your consciousness has been filled completely by the negativity. You can’t escape your own negativity — if your intention is to crush someone else with your negativity, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you’ll always be crushed first by it.

This understanding alone puts an end to any questions about “justified” negativity. Justification is irrelevant when it comes to negative emotions. Acting on justifiable anger is like saying, “A serial killer lives next door, and I have to kill them to protect my neighborhood — I’m going to set my house on fire and hope that the flames spread to his house.”

This is also the basis for the golden rule — Treat others how you’d like to be treated. This isn’t a commentary on retribution (even though that’s how it’s always taught). The point isn’t, “You better be nice to people because if you aren’t, someone might come along and be mean to you.”

The point of the golden rule is that you are always subjected to your emotional state before anyone else is. Treating others poorly is equivalent to being treated poorly. When you’re mean to somebody else, you’re also being mean to yourself (because your consciousness has to fill with meanness before any meanness “spills out” onto others).

The idea of “emotional spill” can totally redefine your approach to the world. When you realize that it’s impossible to poison someone else with your negativity and that the only way to truly poison others is to poison yourself so completely that toxic fumes radiate off of you, you’ll never feel an impulse to lean into negative emotions again. Even if somebody acts in a way that you’d be totally justified in getting angry, you won’t want to get angry because that’d just be adding fuel to the negativity fire.

This brings me to the next piece of the negativity puzzle: “The Blob” Effect.

In the movie “The Blob,” a strange, gelatinous mass arrives on Earth aboard a meteor and slowly starts consuming everything it comes into contact with. As it consumes, it grows; as it grows, it gains greater capacity to consume further.

“Energies” work kind of like the Blob. A negative energy is born as a thought or feeling in your consciousness — its goal is to consume your energy completely. If you allow it to do that, eventually, the negative energy blob will have no more energy within you to consume, and it’ll spill out into your world. After the negativity blob overflows, it’ll continue trying to consume any energies it comes into contact with.

An “anger blob” will consume all your non-anger energies first in an attempt to transmute them into anger. After this process is complete, it’ll spill out of you in the form of angry actions and behaviors. When other people encounter your angry actions and behaviors (if the blob has its way), they’ll be infected by the anger, too, and all of their energy will also be consumed.

When somebody is unkind to you — even if they’re downright cruel — all that’s happening is their “blob” has run out of energy to consume and is spilling out into the world looking for more food. To get angry in response is to allow yourself to be infected.

In this way, trying to remain detached and imperturbable is not for the benefit of the world, even though the world will ultimately benefit. It’s just a simple form of self-preservation.

When you know that people’s “Blobs” are constantly trying to feed on your energy, and you know that any energy or emotion you allow to take root inside of yourself will ultimately consume you before it spills out and consumes others, it becomes much easier to let things go.

It’s also worth noting that this process works in reverse: if you fill yourself with kindness, that kindness will overflow out of you into the world. You don’t have to try to be a good person for society’s benefit — be completely self-serving and fill yourself with goodness for your own sake. The end result will still be good actions and behaviors.

As always, good luck.